Gay western movies

But amid these hard-boiled westerns came a different, and softer, film. Just western everything about the cowboy way of life screams gay: leather, assless chaps, cowboy hats, denim jackets. A young man returns to his family farm, after a long stay in ex-gay conversion therapy, and is torn between the expectations of his emotionally distant father, and the memories of a past, loving relationship he has tried to bury.

The troupe pared back Massot's visual flourishes to make space for new gags and new dialogue. Massot was in talks with the Beatles' Apple Films to produce the movie. You want to get on that horse. Like Kelly Reichardt's recent First Cowand Jane Campion's Oscar-tipped The Power of the DogZachariah shot back at the genre's fatalistic masculinity by celebrating peace, pacifism and, most remarkably, intimate male friendship.

This was going to be their big break in Hollywood. Many more westerns of the era had similarly shocking, symbolic conclusions. Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider foretold the death of the hippie dream. The words “gay” and “cowboy” go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Westerns are iconic and manly, but can a western be queer? Lennon would later be instrumental in catapulting El Topo to cult status by praising it publicly; perhaps he could do the same for Zachariah. Though ostensibly designed to convey the death of the Old West, these end-of-the-line westerns also echoed the way the flower-power fantasy wilted in the movie of the Tate-LaBianca murdersthe violence at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival, and the escalating tensions of the Vietnam War.

More like this:. From the quintessential gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain to older films like Midnight Cowboy, there is something for everyone. But the western had it in its sights too. As the idealistic s gave way to the cynical s, US cinema began serving up increasingly nihilistic and psychologically complex storiesall with sour endings to match.

Zachariah was dreamt up by writer-director Joe Massot, whose debut feature Wonderwall had been scored by George Harrison. Released in and gay as "the first electric western", Zachariah was chiefly a musical comedy. It was to be a deeply psychedelic movie, a western characterised more by its out-there visuals than by any moral message.

Check out these five queer western films I've wrangled up that are queer - yet still a Western!. Drummer Ginger Baker was attached to star too. Brigitte Bardot was earmarked for the role of sultry showgirl Belle Starr. But it's in the communion between its protagonists Zachariah and Matthew that the film's most meaningful messages are found.

10 great queer westerns and cowboy films Twenty years after Brokeback Mountain, we explore other films that tackle LGBTQIA+ themes in cowboy clothes – some more obviously than others. Massot wanted Bob Dylan to play the eponymous character and The Band to play the Crackers, the film's literal band of outlaws.

There, while Harrison and John Lennon were locked in a meditative stand-off to see who had the stronger resolve, Massot was struck by the idea of two friends duelling in the desert for spiritual supremacy. ABC Pictures eventually optioned it and hired surrealist four-man comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre to punch up the script.

Following its release, Massot found himself in India, engaged in transcendental meditation alongside the Beatles. The US group's satirical radio broadcasts and comedy albums — made by hippies, for hippies — would go on to be influential across the audio-comedy spectrum.

None of them did. The actor Sam Elliott's controversial recent comments criticised The Power of the Dog's 'allusions to homosexuality', but queer readings of westerns stretch back decades, and Zachariah is a prime example, writes Sean McGeady.